Deepwater Horizon.

[Goldie fish]

My attention was drawn this morning to a fire that occurred on an Oil Rig in the Gulf of mexico last week. Oddly it isn't making huge headlines this side of the atlantic, but clearly it appears to be their Piper Alpha, all th emore tragic in the fact that the Rig involved is one of the most modern in use, with all the best safety features.



Before the fire.

It was a DP rig, or floating, instead of mounted on Legs on the seabed. It holds the record for drilling the Deepest oil well in history.

The rig represents the cutting edge of drilling technology. It is a floating rig, capable of working in up to 10,000 ft water depth. The rig is
not moored; It does not use anchors because it would be too costly and too heavy to suspend this mooring load from the floating
structure. Rather, a triply-redundant computer system uses satellite positioning to control powerful thrusters that keep the rig on station
within a few feet of its intended location, at all times. This is called Dynamic Positioning.

On april 20 however, it suffered a blowout, which occurred so quickly that there was no time to operate any of the failsafes. Flames were visible up to 35 miles away, rising 300 feet or so. Survivors say they had as little as 5 minutes to evacuate before the flames got out of control. After burning for more than a day, while support vessels tried in vain to douse the flames, the rig Capsized and sank on April 22nd.

The problem is the Wellhead is still open, and it is leaking very crude oil into the sea, about 1000 barrells a day. BP are, with Undersea ROVs attempting to close the well, and in time, another well will be drilled to alleviate pressure on the current wellhead, which is still attached to the sunken rig.

http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/blog/archives/5240

http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-435316?hpt=C2

[FoxtrotRK]

Being on a rig in a situation like that must be terrifying. My mother told me ages ago my grandfather had such an experience in the North Sea. Looked it up recently and it turned out to be Piper Alpha. Didn't realise so many were killed, or that there were so few survivors (fortunately including my granda).

[pmtts]

Being on a rig in a situation like that must be terrifying. My mother told me ages ago my grandfather had such an experience in the North Sea. Looked it up recently and it turned out to be Piper Alpha. Didn't realise so many were killed, or that there were so few survivors (fortunately including my granda).

Back in the 90's there was a superb documentary called ' Rescue '

It was based on the daily operations of Rescue 137, a Sea King flown by 202 Sqn out of Lossiemouth.

Cameraman Paul Berriff was on Rescue 137 when the Piper Alpha shout came in. Some amazing but horrifying footage was shot during the rescue of survivors.

[DeV]

I remember seeing Piper Alpha on the news.... it was unreal!

A lot was done to make rigs safer as a result (at least in the North Sea).

[Goldie fish]

I remember seeing Piper Alpha on the news.... it was unreal!

A lot was done to make rigs safer as a result (at least in the North Sea).

And that is the scary part. This rig had all the safety features available, yet 11 of its crew were unable to escape.

[ZULU]

From what I can understand from the reports is that a shut off valve failed on the well head that is a safety interlock to respond to sudden pressure changes.

They had ROVs in the area that also failed to engage the shutoff manually.

After that, the pressure head, once it reached the platform ignited instantly.

[Goldie fish]

By all accounts the environmental impact of this will put the Torrey Canyon or Exxon Valdez to shame.
BP are taking full responsibility for cleanup, while at the same time saying it isn't actually their fault, as the rig was not owned by them.

The impact of this may yet hit oil prices, as it is now a much greater gamble to drill wells in deep water. In the eyes of Insurance underwriters it is at least.

[Goldie fish]

Helicopters drop sandbags as oil spill grows
Tuesday, May 11, 2010 - 07:31 AM



Black Hawk helicopters peppered Louisiana’s barrier islands with sacks of sand to bolster crucial wetlands against the four million gallon-and-growing Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

At the site of the ruptured well a mile underwater, a remote-controlled submarine shot chemicals into the massive leak to dilute the flow, further evidence that BP expects the gusher to keep erupting into the Gulf for weeks or more.

Crews using the deep-sea robot attempted to thin the oil – which is rushing up from the seabed at a pace of about 210,000 gallons a day – after getting approval from the Environmental Protection Agency, BP officials said.

Two previous tests were done to determine the potential impact on the environment and the third round of spraying was to last into today.

The EPA said the effects of the chemicals were still widely unknown.

BP engineers were casting about after an ice-like build-up thwarted their plan to siphon off most of the leak using a 100-ton containment box.

They pushed ahead with other potential short-term solutions, including using a smaller box and injecting the leak with junk such as golf balls and pieces of tyre to plug it. If it works, the well will be filled with mud and cement and abandoned.

“This is the largest, most comprehensive spill response mounted in the history of the US and the oil and gas industry,” BP chief executive Tony Hayward said in Houston, Texas.

None of those methods has been attempted so deep. Workers were simultaneously drilling a relief well – the solution considered most permanent – but that was expected to take up to three months.

At least four million gallons were believed to have leaked since an April 20 drilling rig blast killed 11.

If the gusher continues unabated, it would surpass the Exxon Valdez disaster as America’s worst spill by June 20. About 11 million gallons leaked in Alaska’s Prince William Sound from the tanker in 1989.

The new containment device is much smaller, about 4ft in diameter, 5ft tall and weighing just under two tons, said Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer. Unlike the bigger box, it will be connected to a drill ship on the surface by a pipe-within-a-pipe when it is lowered, which will allow crews to pump heated water and methanol immediately to prevent the ice build-up.

In Grand Isle, at the tip of the Louisiana boot, a small army of heavy machinery – civilian and military dump trucks, US Army jeeps and Hummers, front-end loaders and diggers – scurried to fortify a breached section of beach. National Guard helicopters had dropped sandbags on the breach, and later piles of dirt were being pushed together to make a dam, keeping oil from reaching the marshes.

As the sandbags plopped in place, workers further inland used pumps and other structures to divert fresh water from the Mississippi River into the marshlands, hoping it would help push back the oily salt water lapping at the coast.

The floodworks had been installed to help rebuild Louisiana’s shrinking wetlands by injecting sediment-rich water from the river.

“We’re trying to save thousands of acres of marsh here in this area, where the shrimp lay their eggs, where the fin fish lay their eggs, where the crabs come in and out,” said Chett Chiasson, executive director of the Greater Lafourche Port Commission.

“We’re trying to save a heritage, a way of life, a culture that we know here in recreational and commercial fishing.”

BP – which is responsible for the clean-up – said the spill had cost the company$350m (€280m) so far for immediate response, containment efforts, commitments to the Gulf Coast states, and settlements and government costs. The company did not speculate on the final bill, which most analysts expect to run into tens of billions.

Above the oil leak, waves of dark brown and black sludge crashed into the support ship Joe Griffin. The fumes there were so intense that a crew member and a photographer on board had to wear respirators while on deck.

Oil has washed up west of the Mississippi River and as far east as Dauphin Island, three miles off the Alabama mainland at the mouth of Mobile Bay.

The blow-out aboard the rig, which was being leased by BP, was triggered by a bubble of methane gas that escaped from the well and shot up the drill column, expanding quickly as it burst through several seals and barriers before exploding, according to interviews with rig workers conducted during BP’s initial, internal probe.

http://www.examiner.ie/breakingnews/world/helicopters-drop-sandbags-as-oil-spill-grows-457173.html

[ZULU]

Perspective of oil spill

[Goldie fish]

Its a nasty one, no doubt about it. Goes to show we are a long way from being able to get to most of the oil off our coasts.
Back to the drawing board.

[Goldie fish]

There was a very interesting show on Discovery over the weekend(probably will be repeated) a Salvage Code Red special.

It went through the Response from Coastguard and other agencies, initialy from an SAR aspect, With Dolphins and Jayhawks operating at the edge of their range, using other oil platforms to refuel, and on to the firefighting effort, with specialist teams preparing their equipment to be shipped on scene, only for the rig to sink before they got there.

It also showed the Oil retrieval work being carried out by USCG using oil skimmers and large bladders, which, once full, are towed to have the slick extracted and refined. Extreme recycling.

I understand in these parts, a civilian tanker operator has equipped its ships with skimmers to be used in the event of an oil slick in nearby waters.

[ZULU]

I remember the 1997 Whitegate spill of a "stated" 30 tons of Heavy Fuel Oil.

We were involved directly with an OSRL Quick Reaction Team from Southhampton.

That was a frakking tough effort to respond to that.


God help us if something larger came our way.


The OSRL guys just couldn't understand how long it had taken for them to be brought in given there was no response assets dedicated to such a situation.

[FoxtrotRK]

The irony...

[ZULU]

[ZULU]